ABSTRACT
‘At arms!’ This cry has been raised often, in many countries, and at many times. We know it perhaps best in French as, ‘Aux armes, citoyens!’ from the Marseillaise, fervently calling on all citizens to fight for the fatherland. ‘Levée and masse’ or national conscription seems to be a modern phenomenon, born in the days after the storming of the Bastille. However, the general popular resistance is much older. It is universal in origin in that in a variety of states throughout the world all able-bodied men from the age of sixteen or eighteen to sixty have been obliged to take up arms to defend their house, hearth, village, town, region, or country against invaders. In other words, people who could handle weapons but for whom fighting was not their profession have stepped up to fight, whether or not under the guidance of professionals. In the early Middle Ages, in the face of the threat of violence, every free man throughout Europe had to stand up for his rights with his own hands, either individually when necessary, but also together with his neighbours, family, and political community. Anyone who was not able to do so, and therefore, had to be protected by somebody else, lost his honour and status as an independent individual as a matter of course. This applied to city dwellers as well as to farmers and peasants. That is why we see free men as conscripts in raids, sieges, and battles in many regions from the People’s Movements until the fourteenth century. They followed their princes and fought alongside the prince’s vassals and hired professional warriors.
